“‘When I picked up that there mall-head, I was reminded of something I saw once up in the Madawaska woods that struck me as just about the funniest I ever heard tell of. I ’most died laughing over it at the time, and whenever I think of it even now it breaks me all up.’
“Here he paused and eyed me.
“‘But I don’t believe you’d see anything funny in it, because you didn’t see it,’ he continued in his slow and drawling tones ‘so I reckon I won’t bother telling you.’
“Then he picked up the handle of the mall as if to resume work.
“I still kept silence, resolved not to ask for the story. Jake was full of anecdotes picked up in the lumbering-camps; and though he was a good workman, he would gladly stop any time to smoke his pipe, or to tell a story.
“But he kept chuckling over his own thoughts until I couldn’t do a stroke of work. I saw I had to give in, and I surrendered.
“‘Oh, go along and let’s have it!’ said I, dropping the axe, and seating myself on the log in an attitude of most inviting attention.
“This encouragement was what Jake was waiting for.
“‘Did you ever see a bear box?’ he inquired. I had seen some performances of that sort; but as Jake took it for granted I hadn’t, and didn’t wait for a reply, I refrained from saying so.
“‘Well, a bear can box some, now I tell you. But I’ve seen one clean knocked out by an old mall without a handle, just like this one here; and there wasn’t any man at the end of it either.’